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There was never a time in Dazai’s life where he didn’t have nightmares. Even when he was a child, living in his grandfather’s mansion, night terrors plagued him like no other.
His siblings and cousins — whose rooms sandwiched his — quickly got irritated with Dazai when he started to wake up screaming.
Sometimes, if his mother was near, she’d come to comfort him. She’d brush her lithe fingers through his hair, press a kiss to his head and tell him it was okay. The nightmare was just a dream. And it was over. Nothing to be scared of.
And then she died, succumbing to her illness after a year’s long battle. After that, there was no more comfort. Not from her, or anyone else. His siblings and cousins slaughtered each other in competition for their grandfather’s wealth and inheritance. Dazai had to learn how to stop his screams before they even started. How to shove his face in the pillow the second even a hint of consciousness began to creep into him. More than a few times, he’d almost suffocated himself like that. He never put in the effort to stop himself. If anything, the prospect of dying in his sleep became more and more enticing as time went on.
Then, Mori. The nightmares became his reality. Sleep was never a sanctuary for him; just another hell to be suspended in.
The nightmares continued as the stages of his life went on. Dazai slept less to avoid them, but it wasn’t a sustainable practice; he always collapsed eventually, the exhaustion stealing him away once more.
The only time the nightmares slowed was when he joined you and Chuuya. They didn’t go away — Dazai suspected they never would — but with the two of you, they weren’t as frequent. The bags under his eyes lightened — even if only a little — when he was with you.
You and Chuuya knew of the nightmares, of course. None of you were heavy sleepers — a common habit that stemmed from being part of the Port Mafia — so both of you felt when Dazai jolted in bed. Heard when he stumbled into the hallway.
Neither of you knew what images he saw when he closed his eyes. You’d figured out long ago that it couldn’t have been failed missions, or the faces of the droves of people he’d killed. Dazai didn’t feel remorse for those actions, so they couldn’t haunt him in the night. Those people were objects to him. Obstacles. Their screams were white noise in the background of his suffering.
Sometimes, you could tell the dreams were about Mori. Those were the ones where only Chuuya could calm him down, remind him where he was. You were a remnant of the past, during those. A reminder of all that had happened within those accursed walls. The failed attempts to end his own life only for him to be ripped from the sweet embrace of death by Mori’s cruel hands, the vivisections on the cold metal table that ended with more blood on the ground than in his body.
You never blamed him for how he reacted to you when his mind was still caught in the past. It wasn’t his fault. Chuuya had to remind you it wasn’t yours either, and of course the rational part of your brain knew that. But on the worst nights, when Dazai had a dark look in his eye that was impenetrable by light or reason, and he looked at you like you were the incarnation of his nightmares. Like you had been the one to carve the scars into his body yourself, instead of the man that made your lives living hells. It was the look you caught him with after more learning experiences with Mori, back when you were younger. When that back-alley doctor’s office and the clawed hand of Mori that fed you was all you knew.
You never waited to usher yourself out of the bedroom on those nights, if only not to see the tears that inevitably stained Dazai’s cheeks. You’d escape to the living room of Chuuya’s apartment (where you all lived together, in the northernmost tower of the Port Mafia’s headquarters complex. It was on one of the highest floors, overlooking the port. You still owned your own apartment, in the west building, but rarely went back. Chuuya had the bigger one between the two of you.).
The floor to ceiling windows let you stare out into the city, watching the midnight trades at the port and the moon as it passed through the Yokohama sky. You’d wait there, sitting on the ground, until Chuuya came to bring you back to bed, or until the sun rose.
Once, Dazai came out instead. He was silent as he walked towards you, his feet dragging on the hardwood floors. You could tell it was him; he walked as though he was trying to make as little noise as possible. Nearly silent. It was a habit picked up from living with Mori. You had it too.
He stopped behind you, like a ghost. You saw him in the reflection of the window; his hair was messy, bangs hanging over his bloodshot eyes. His shirt hung loosely from his frame, drowning him in fabric. He had fresh bandages on his arms, likely courtesy of Chuuya. A few spots of blood had already bled through the gauze.
For a moment, he just stood behind you, silent. You didn’t turn or acknowledge him, knowing you’d scare him away.
Then he crouched behind you, arms slowly coming to encircle you. He was giving you a chance to push him away. To tell him to fuck off, to be angry at him.
You didn’t take the unspoken offer.
He pulled you close, forehead resting on the top of your spine. His breaths were hot against your skin, fast and panicked, yet dead quiet. You felt his heart beat against your back, rapid and stumbling over itself. Silently, you took Dazai’s hand and pressed it to your chest to feel the pulse of your own heart. His breath stuttered when he felt it, whether in relief or shock, you didn’t know, and regulated his own heart to match yours. You wordlessly guided him down from the cliff his mind was on, your presence enough to calm him.
The two of you stayed there till morning.
❖❖❖
On the worst nights, where Dazai’s organs felt like tearing themselves from the confines of his body and his mind was unopposed to the idea, he escaped to the shipping container. It didn’t matter what time it was, or the weather outside. The shipping container was cold and miserable and Dazai hated being there. But it woke him from his senses. The pain made him lucid, the ice biting at his fingers and cheeks, unrelenting. If it was raining, the drops would batter the metal roof of the container, echoing into claps of thunder, almost enough to deafen Dazai. On the lucky nights, it was enough to drown out the sound of his thoughts. He didn’t care if, the next time he walked out of the box — whether he did so at all — his head was pounding and eardrums were half blown out. His ravaging thoughts were muffled, enough that Dazai couldn’t hear them anymore. A small price to pay, in his opinion.
One night, he could barely remember what the dream was even about. But if it was enough to scare him into running to the storage container barefoot in the middle of a rainy, autumn night, then he was fine not knowing.
All he remembered was that you and Chuuya were there. And… and then both of you left him behind. You didn’t turn when he screamed your names. Didn’t turn when he begged for you to even look at him. The smiles on your faces were cruel and sneering, teeth bared.
Dazai’s memory was blurry after that. The only clue as to how he even got to the storage container were the aching, gravel-scraped soles of his feet. Distantly, he wondered if he was bleeding.
Dazai shivered, holding back a sob. It was so cold in the container. The ratty futon beneath him barely kept the cold of the metal floors away. He had a blanket, but it was thin as paper, with holes Dazai could slip his hand through.
A sharp wind swept through the container, making Dazai curl tighter into himself. He tucked his face into his arms and squeezed his eyes shut. The tears flowed freely down his face. No one was around to judge him, to take advantage of him for his weakness.
“Dazai?”
He froze.
That was your voice. You were calling him.
He peeked over his arms, squinting at the dim moonlight flooding through the crevice between the large metal doors. You stood there, wearing dampened pajamas, with Chuuya standing behind you, looking over your shoulder.
Dazai hadn’t noticed you even opening the door.
“Dazai,” you murmured, eyes landing on the dark-haired boy. You sounded relieved. You walked into the container, footsteps echoing. Chuuya came in after you, clothes in a similar state to yours. Dazai could even detect a hint of fear, of worry in the ginger’s eyes. Dazai tucked his head back into his arms to hide.
He heard your footsteps still in front of him. “Is it okay if I touch you?” you asked. Dazai was silent for a moment, then nodded minutely. You slowly laced your arms around him, allowing him to be able to stop you if he suddenly changed his mind. But that night, he pulled you close. His nails dug into your back. You dared not make noise. He was grounding himself, keeping his body and mind anchored in reality. If you had to bleed a little, you didn’t mind.
“You don’t have to do this alone, Dazai,” Chuuya said, sitting down next to you and Dazai. His voice was quiet. Soft. “You know that, right? Neither of us are goin’ anywhere.”
Dazai sniffled, breath trembling. He wanted them to go away, to leave him to die in the hell of his own making, but he couldn’t wrench out a sound louder than a whimper. You tightened your grip.
You didn’t tell him shit like “everything is going to be okay” or “you’ll be alright”. They were sweet nothings. Placates. They meant nothing, especially with the lifestyle the three of you lived. In the mafia, nothing was ever okay. You all went to funerals on a weekly basis, scars riddled your bodies from bullet wounds, stabbings, acid burns. Dazai was head of the combat division; Chuuya was the strongest ability user in the Eastern hemisphere, able to take down legions of soldiers in a single blow with Corruption; you were an assassin, a knife on a leash. You were born to die young, to burn bright and fast. Your hands were soaked in unfathomable amounts of blood. None of you were ever alright or okay.
But you tried your damn hardest to come close.
You pressed your lips to Dazai’s cheeks, kissing away the tears. “Come on, Osamu,” you murmured. He noticed your voice was still rough with sleep, eyes a little glazed. You couldn’t have been awake for longer than 20 minutes. “Let’s go home.”
Home.
Dazai’s breath rattled in his chest. He gave the barest of nods. “Yeah.”
Chuuya hooked his arm under Dazai’s knees, lifting him with more ease than you could ever hope to. Dazai leaned into Chuuya’s body, his eyes sliding shut as he rested his head in the crook of Chuuya’s neck. He hiccuped every few seconds.
“I got you,” Chuuya whispered with a kind of gentleness he reserved for nights like those. His gaze, blue and warm, flicked to you. A silent conversation passed through the air. You nodded. Chuuya returned the gesture, and began walking towards the car.
You followed him out, but closed the doors to the storage container. You created a new combination for the lock, a random set of numbers that you forgot as soon as the object was out of your hands. There wasn’t a doubt in your mind that Dazai would likely figure out the code in a matter of seconds, but you didn’t quite care. Hopefully, Dazai wouldn’t go back to the storage container in the first place.
You walked to the car and slid into the backseat. Chuuya laid Dazai down, and the brown-haired boy climbed into your lap to rest his head on your thighs. You threaded your fingers into his curls, nails gently scratching against his scalp as Chuuya sat down in the front seat and turned on the ignition.
Dazai could tell you were struggling not to fall asleep as the car drove through the silent midnight streets of Yokohama. Every few minutes, your hand would slowly still its motions, only to resume a moment later with a slight start in your muscles.
He nuzzled his head into your thighs, relishing in your familiar scent. You smelled like rain and iron something distinctly you. Something warm and soft, beneath the layers of angst and apathy you donned as the ‘Red Wolf’. Dazai considered it a stupid name for you — for anyone, really — but you wore it well. But Dazai liked the flesh that laid beneath your armor much more than the hard plating on the outside.
The car slowed to a stop, and the hum of the engine silenced as Chuuya turned it off.
You gently patted Dazai’s head. “We’re home, ‘Samu,” you murmured. “You wanna walk or do you want Chuuya?”
“Chuuya.” Dazai winced at the weakness of his own voice. But he didn’t think he could walk if he tried, and the bottoms of his feet stung from the bits of concrete and glass and God knew what else that was embedded into his skin.
You nodded, and helped Dazai slowly sit up, leaning his body against your own as Chuuya got out of the driver’s seat and opened the backseat door. He carefully took the brunet into his arms.
You didn’t let go of Dazai’s hand as you kicked the car door closed and locked it, ignoring Chuuya’s glare at the muddy boot print you left on the custom paint job.
You walked through the front door, Chuuya nodding to the doorman for all three of you as you walked into the elevator.
As the doors shut, Dazai stared at your conjoined hands. The way your fingers were intertwined with his, thumb ghosting over his pulse. Perhaps it was a reminder for you that he was still alive. Still breathing. Still willing, at least for the time being, to stay by yours and Chuuya’s side in the world of the living and suffering. There had been too many close calls where you found him in the storage container and couldn’t feel his pulse. Your instinct seemed to always touch him where you could feel he was still alive. Dazai liked to think that it was just as grounding for you as it was for him.
He turned his gaze away, shame filling his chest uncomfortably. You wouldn’t have to be scared if he was still alive if he wasn’t so fucked up. Wouldn’t feel the need to check when you jerk awake in the middle of night, thinking he’s asleep. Your life would be better if Dazai wasn’t there. Chuuya’s, too. Your stress would be halved, you wouldn’t need to spend your time trying to help him.
But Dazai was selfish, body clinging stubbornly to life like a parasite.
Shame filled his chest, leaving a burning sensation in its wake. He couldn’t count how many times you or Chuuya caught him in the middle of or after an attempt. Couldn’t count the rushes to the hospital or the nights spent hunched over a toilet as he vomited to seemingly no end. Couldn’t count the amount of times Chuuya had held his hair back, or you held his hand, fast asleep, while he laid in a lumpy hospital bed. Where the two of you were sleep-deprived, papers piled on your desks or missions stacked up, and you chose to help Dazai instead. Chose to waste your time on a lost cause such as himself.
You saved him from himself. Like Mori, you two brought him back, over and over and over, no matter how many times he tried to free himself from the word of life and struggle. The only difference was that you did it with gentle but firm hands, loving words whispered in his ear, instead of iron and ropes and unholy medicine and gloved hands that itched to choke rather than save.
Dazai didn’t deserve your kindness, your patience, your love. It was too much. He never knew what to do with it, how to return it. He barely knew if what he felt for the two of you was even love. The lines of obsession and hatred and love were always painfully thin.
So he hurt. He tried to push you away, tried to insult and berate and yell and shove, but you and Chuuya stayed. Stubbornly. Pathetically. Foolishly. Dazai didn’t know why. And it scared him. Terrified him in a way he struggled to describe. You two were devastatingly human, and Dazai was everything but. How could you love a creature, a monster like him?
He glanced at you again, studying your features in the dim light of the elevator. The bags under your eyes, the rat’s nest of your hair, your rumpled, rain-dampened clothes. Your shoulders sagged low, unlike the confident stride you usually had. You looked exhausted.
Dazai trained his gaze at Chuuya. As he suspected, the other boy looked similar to you. Fiery, ginger hair out and whispering at his neck, instead confined in the ponytail he seemed to prefer. Dazai could feel the dampness of his sleep shirt through his own clothes. The bags under Chuuya’s mismatched eyes weren’t as deep as yours, but they were present nonetheless.
The both of you were tired, even without Dazai’s stupid fucking nightmares. Weeks of busy missions, nonstop working, meetings and paperwork. Sure, Dazai had that stuff too, but he didn’t give a shit about any of it. He’d made it abundantly clear he was only in the Port Mafia because he was bored. He didn’t care about the city or the people or the politics.
You and Chuuya were different.
Chuuya was in the Mafia because he wanted to protect Yokohama. He cared about the citizens and keeping them safe. He did bad things for the greater good. He was fundamentally a good man. A great man, even.
You didn’t have a choice in your evils. You understood why you did it, understood the purpose of the greater good, and followed orders. You didn’t hate your job, not completely, as much as you complained about it. You found some twisted joy in shooting traitors and killing rivals.
Nonetheless, the both of you led busy lives. Dazai was a burden to you. He took up wasted space, brought you and Chuuya down with him when he fell.
And yet Chuuya carried him anyway. You held his hand. Dealt with his thunder storms, the raging emotions that he couldn’t handle, the demon festering inside that begged to be let out. He was cruel and selfish and clawed at anyone who tried to get close to him. Even you and Chuuya. Especially you and Chuuya.
And despite it all, you both kissed his head during his episodes and his bad days, carding hands through his hair, so gentle it almost felt like a dream Dazai would jolt awake from into the nightmare that was his life. Because everything, everything, Dazai Osamu wanted was destroyed the second he obtained it. Surely the two of you were no exception.
Dazai didn’t register the silent tears running down his cheeks until you were kissing them away, your lips brushing against his skin. He opened his eyes — barely even having noticed that he’d closed them in the first place — and found you standing in front of him. Your tired eyes were full of concern and searching for the cause of Dazai’s crying.
An ugly thought entered Dazai’s mind: perhaps you two were doing all this — taking care of him, pretending to love him — because you pitied him. The poor, friendless executive Dazai, all alone in his storage container. Maybe it was something of a game. Take care of him until you got bored, until his cold, dead heart is in the palm of your hands, then dump him on the side of the road once you find something more interesting to play with. You’d leave him in the dust the second something more shiny, something less broken, caught your eyes.
But… no. No, that couldn’t be the case. Dazai had seen you bored. He’d seen you manipulate. He’d seen you in the torture pits, had been on countless missions one with you. He knew what you looked like when you played with your victims’ emotions. Giving them hope, only to rip it away like it never existed in the first place. You always had a certain glint in your eyes when you did that. Whether you yourself knew it was there or not was of no consequence; Dazai knew. Because Dazai could read you like an open book. He knew you. Your complexities, your simplicities. If you were pitying Dazai, he would’ve known long ago.
And Chuuya was never one to throw away his toys, to abandon strays, even when he grew bored of them. Not that his boredom was common. He loved deeply, fully, unceasingly. His face never lied, not to Dazai. And he wasn’t one to coddle.
“Osamu,” you called, “what is it? What’s wrong, love?”
Everything was wrong
“Why–” His voice caught in his throat. “Why do you keep coming back?” Why do you love me even when it hurts you? When I don’t deserve it?
“What are you going on about?” Chuuya questioned. “You’re our partner, of course we’re gonna come get you outta that shithole.”
The elevator dinged quietly, and the doors opened into Chuuya’s apartment.
“But why?” Dazai struggled to keep the desperation out of his voice.
“Because we can,” you said, walking into the apartment, “and because we want to. You’re our third, Osamu. We love you.”
Dazai was crying freely. He could barely get out a word as he held back the sobs. “But–”
“Uh-uh. No buts,” you said. You squeezed Dazai’s hand, thumb rubbing circles over his knuckles. “We love you. Simple as that. And we don’t have plans to stop anytime soon. Got it?” You started to tug yourself away, but Dazai let out a quiet whine, tightening his hold on you. He selfishly wanted to keep you for himself.
“I’ll be right back, don’t worry,” you said, gently peeling his hands off you. Dazai protested again, but relented, and let you go. You grinned softly, and disappeared into the guest bedroom.
Chuuya walked into the main bedroom and set Dazai on the bed, helping him lay down. He noticed the distant, far-away look in Dazai’s visible eye. The way he stared off into space. “You wanna walk about your nightmare?” he asked quietly, kicking off his shoes and taking the spot next to Dazai.
The brown-haired boy shook his head. The edge of his bandages came loose, curling down.
“How about we change those, yeah?” Chuuya said, already reaching into the drawer of the nightstand to fetch a roll of the soft gauze he always made sure to keep a large stock of in the apartment. “Been a couple days. You gotta be feelin’ pretty gross right now.”
Dazai said nothing; the bandages were admittedly itchy, and damp with sweat and rain and tears. Dazai never cared enough to change them himself. Before he moved in with you and Chuuya, he’d just bought the cheapest things he could find and rewrapped himself when they became stained with blood. Chuuya took more care than that. Dazai had half a mind to question why.
Slowly, Chuuya sat Dazai up and began unraveling the old, yellowed strips. He scrunched his nose in disgust, but tried to hide it. Not that trying to hide his emotions would’ve worked on Dazai, but the effort was noted.
“I’m gonna go get a rag,” Chuuay said, tossing the used dressings in the trash.
Dazai closed his eyes as Chuuya went into the bathroom. He hated being without the bandages, even if only for a moment. He felt naked, barren in the worst way possible. Like all his weaknesses were put on display.
The reason why Dazai wore the bandages over his eye was a highly speculated gossip topic in the Port Mafia. He couldn’t always be injured in that specific spot, could he? And if not, then what was he hiding? Did he just like the bandages? Then people dismissed the idea because they thought Dazai — the ‘Demon Prodigy’ — didn’t have preferences for anything other than torture.
The truth was, Dazai was blind.
Well, half blind. From the moment he was born he’d never been able to see out of his right eye. The doctors couldn’t explain why. The lenses inside his eyes just couldn’t perceive light. They’d tried various treatments to fix it, but the medicines never did anything. So, Dazai just put bandages over it to cover up the slight rolling laziness of the useless eye. No point in worrying about it.
Chuuya returned from the bathroom with a dampened washcloth in hand. He cupped Dazai’s face in his hand and gently blotted at the grime and dried rivulets of sweat on the pale skin.
Dazai didn’t reopen his eyes until Chuuya started to rewrap the bandages. He felt from the wrapping technique alone that he’d have to redo Chuuya’s shoddy work later, but it didn’t matter at the moment. He wasn’t barren anymore.
Chuuya turned around at the soft sound of your footsteps against the hardwood flooring.
“I was going to wait until your birthday,” you said, sauntering towards the bed, “but I suppose now is as good a time as any. Knowing you, you probably would’ve found out anyway.” You brought the object out from behind your back and handed it to Dazai. It was a large crab stuffed animal, about a meter long, made of a fuzzy, muted red material that Dazai didn’t hesitate to smoosh his face into. He inhaled deeply, stopped when a gentle scent wandered into his senses.
“Lavender,” he whispered, eyes wide. His mother used to use lavender to help him sleep. It never really worked, but he liked the scent.
Dazai didn’t like to think about his past. But his mom… she’d been one of the only good things in his life up until he met you and Chuuya (as much as he loathed to admit the slug was something good).
Hesitancy colored your expression as you sat down on the bed. “Is that okay?”
Dazai nodded, curling into the stuffed creature. “Yeah,” he said, voice muffled.
You grinned in relief, and kissed the top of his head. “Good. I’m glad you like it. Now let’s get some sleep, yeah?”
Dazai shuffled to the middle of the bed, letting you and Chuuya sandwich him between the sheets. He hugged the crab to his chest, the familiar scent making his eyes droop, exhaustion finally settling in his bones.
The three of you had a meeting with Mori and the rest of the executives and sub-execs in the morning. 7:00 am sharp, to be exact. You were expected to arrive 15 minutes early, too. It wasn’t really about anything important; just a biweekly, pre-set meeting time for all the major players in the Port Mafia to report their progress, findings, mission successes (or failures), etc. Tedious, but necessary for communication between all sects of the organization.
Before you even got into bed, you unplugged the alarm clock on your nightstand. Boring meetings could wait. Yeah, you’d all get in trouble with Mori and Kouyou, and the rest of the execs would surely be pissed at you for wasting their time, especially on an early morning.
But you found that you didn’t care. There’d be other meetings. Other missions. Other mornings. Those weren’t important. You didn’t care about them. The only thing you cared about were the two heartbeats pulsing in time next to yours.